maddened by the stars
by bohemienne
Summary: Johanna's thoughts can be overwhelming at times. This is somewhat based on the stage version, but not exclusively so.


Disclaimer: _Sweeney Todd_ belongs to Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, and alas, not to me.

* * *

_so suddenly a woman_

She knows the story of Rapunzel, and the similarities are not lost on her. When she was younger, Johanna wondered if she, too, would find a prince to take her from her tower. Now she wonders what will happen if her prince does not come soon enough. She wonders if Rapunzel ever felt her guardian's heavy gaze dwell on her for too long, and if she felt the sense of urgency that Johanna has begun to feel. As every new day begins, Johanna feels herself approaching womanhood, and it terrifies her because she knows that _he _feels it, too. Fathers are supposed to see their daughters always as little girls, Johanna thinks. They're not supposed to notice when their daughters begin to fill out their dresses.

She acts younger than she is, especially around him. She sings to the birds, talks to them, sometimes she acts like they respond. (Sometimes she thinks she _hears_ them respond, but she chooses not to dwell on that.) She wears her hair down, always, twirling strands of it around her fingers. She used to chew on the ends of it, a nervous habit, but one day she realized by following his eyes that this only drew attention to her lips, her mouth, her tongue, and so she stopped. She asks for new clothes the moment her old ones become too tight. She tries to stand with her arms crossed as long as it doesn't seem rude. She goes through great lengths to conceal her monthly bleeding, the most solid proof yet that she is no longer a little girl. But no matter how she tries, Johanna cannot keep herself from growing up, and she cannot keep him from noticing.

The contradiction between her behavior and her longings bothers her. Despite her girlish performances, she _does_ want to grow up; she longs for freedom from her stone tower, built to protect her from the licentiousness of the world. But the more she lets herself become a woman, the more she realizes how dangerous it is, and how little time she has left before…but she does not know quite what will happen the day her father remembers that he is not really her father, after all. But it all confuses her. The girl and the woman constantly struggle inside her and sometimes she has to stop herself from crying out with the pain of being split in two.

During one of her more childlike moments, Johanna let down her hair over the windowsill, wanting to see how far down it would reach. She was not terribly surprised to see that it would not be a viable escape plan, no matter how similar she was to her fairy tale counterpart. She saw people looking at her, admiring the way her hair shimmered in the sunlight, and she liked that they were looking at her. She knew it was probably wicked of her to like it, but she could not help herself. Johanna felt their eyes transform her from a girl to a woman, and it was far less frightening than she had thought it would be.

But then it was all ruined. A moment later, she saw him, her father. He was just returning home, and as he passed her window, he looked up at her. Johanna smiled down, instantly reverting back to girlhood, but her father could not see the distinction. He did not look at her like she was a girl. And he did not smile; he only stared. With a shudder, Johanna realized that at that moment she _did_ feel wicked. She had kept the window closed for the rest of the day.

Johanna fears that if she is not careful, one day she will not be able to open the window ever again.

* * *

_the way I dreamed you were_

She has nightmares sometimes, but she doesn't think they're the kind of nightmares other people have. In her nightmares, Johanna hears bits of song, snatches of lullaby with words she can't seem to understand. It's something that's more than a dream, but less than a memory, a shapeless thing that dances at the very edge of her conscious mind.

Did Rapunzel remember her parents? she wonders. Did she have any memory of life before the witch?

The voice she hears belongs to a woman. But Johanna never follows the implication any further, never puts together the fragments of thought and memory that start to flood her brain. Because if she does follow that thought, she'll wonder about her mother, about her father, about the reticule her mother left her, about how the Judge became her father, and every thought only brings greater frustration at her inability to understand the world she is forbidden to experience. Johanna feels, sometimes, like her room is too small for her thoughts, and then she has to run to the window and lean out as far as she can to remind herself that the world really is big enough to hold all the contents of her mind.

It terrifies her to think she could be crazy, to think that she'll be driven mad by her constant confinement. The birds in their cages won't sing for her anymore; sometimes they start to fly frantically, crashing against the bars over and over again. That's when the birds are taken from her and replaced with new ones. She does not know what happens to those birds, but she suspects that something similar could happen to her, and then one day a new Johanna will take her place. They are morbid thoughts for such a young girl, but Johanna cannot always escape them; there are only so many places to hide in her room.

She hates hearing the nonsensical cries of the old beggar woman who so often haunts the streets near her home. There is something about the way the woman jumps from one thought to another that reminds Johanna of the workings of her own mind. She is too frantic sometimes, like the birds just before they are taken away from her. Johanna wonders what would happen if she let the birds out of their cages, but when she sees the beggar woman, she stops wondering. It's too late for the birds; they're too damaged.

One night, not too long ago, she had the nightmare again, and she awoke while trying to keep her thoughts from consuming her. The window was thrown wide open and Johanna breathed in the night air. And then she saw a star. Of course, she saw many stars, but one shone brighter than the rest. It gave her great comfort in that moment, as if all the world were asleep except for her and this celestial companion. (Starved for human companionship, Johanna is never picky about where she finds her friends.)

Johanna knew instinctively in that moment that she was not the only person watching that star. There was someone else who was awake, she thought, someone else finding comfort in this heavenly being, and one day she would know this person. That star would bring them together just as any beacon should do. She had no way of actually knowing the truth of this, but she believed it as a fact. She _had_ to believe it.

The moment was ruined, of course, by the piercing shrieks of the old beggar woman.

* * *

_satisfied enough to dream you_

She wonders if she'll be a spinster. The chances of her ever meeting anyone marriageable are not likely at this point. Her father tells her that that all young men are dangerous, and Johanna has no way of knowing how true this is. They certainly don't _seem_ dangerous, not when they walk through the streets, anyway. Surely one of them is worthy enough to climb up her tower and take her away?

When she's bored, she plays a game with the people outside, only they don't know they're playing. She singles out one or two people and imagines what they are doing, where they are going, whom they are seeing today. She looks all day, waiting to see if they pass by again, but this time with a different hat or a different expression. She tries to fill in the hours she misses. In her bleaker moods, she concocts rather horrible fates for them if they do not happen to reappear, but she quickly feels guilty afterwards.

One of them, she thinks, will come to her home one day and her father will take an instant liking to him, and then she'll be allowed to meet him, and of course they'll form an attachment, and then they'll be married and then she can step outside at last. The young gentleman in question regularly changes appearance in Johanna's mind, but he is always a very nice young man, handsome and respectable. And what's most important, he is willing to do whatever he can to marry her, even if her father does not automatically approve. Cages don't open themselves, after all.

She talks to him sometimes. It's only a silly game, of course. Johanna is not mad, not at all, there's nothing mad about this whatsoever. He compliments her gown (but not the way her father does, not like that at all), and she asks about his day. But what worries Johanna is that his responses become increasingly vague every time she imagines their conversations. His face, too, becomes blank, his features less defined. It no longer matters what color his eyes are. It doesn't even matter, sometimes, if her father approves. Johanna does not want to be a spinster. Rapunzel did not ask for a different prince, and Johanna has no intention to do so, either.

After all, there is only so much time before Johanna begins to beat at the bars of her cage.


End file.
